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Promenades hivernales
(Winter walks)
From December 11 to 28, 2025, I did some winter walks near Lyon city, France, with my Pentax 17 half-frame camera (see below fr details) loaded with a Mira 400 negative color film. The Mira 400 is a Kodak Eastman 5207 Vision 3 250D with the remjet coat removed. Consequently it could be processed in the regular Kodak C-41 chemistry for color negative films instead of the ECN-2 protocol that less common to find out from local lab services. The Kodak Vision 3 should be exposed for 250 Iso in the daylight. Here 400 Iso are recommended, may to minis the spossible trong halation caused by the absence of the Remjet.
Kodak Vision3 motion picture films are professional negative color films released by Kodak in 2009. The 250D (250 ISO for daylight) is referenced as Eastman 5207. Compared to photographic negative films, the Kodak Vision is back coated with the so-called rem-jet layer to facilitate the film motion at high-speed in the camera sand also to add a further anti-halo element in addition to the normal orange-magenta tinted film basis. The Vision3 films also include some special color coupler to enhance the color rendition. Kodak Vision3 should be processed normally with a motion picture protocol called ECN-2.
The Pentax 17 was equipped with an Anti-UV or polarizing filter as indicated below. For the camera transportation, I used a small camera bag ThinkTank « Mirrorless Mover 5 » that was well protecting the camera from possibly damaging vibrations when using my bicycle.
The expositions were automatically metered by the camera system using the « P » program modes with, or without, flash. For very bright scenes the exposition was corrected by +0.3 to +1EV to compensate the biais induced (and reversely -0.3 to 0.7 EV for very dark scenes to objects). The Pentax 17 light sensors being behind the filter, the filter is then automatically compensated.
Exploration de Fleurieu-sur-Saône, la cité du "Bleu Guimet"***, December 16, 2025
69250 Fleurieu-sur-Saône
France.
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Bleu Guimet (also known as synthetic ultramarine or Guimet blue) is an artificial blue pigment invented in 1826–1828 by French chemist and industrialist Jean-Baptiste Guimet (1795–1871), a Polytechnique graduate. Motivated by his wife, a painter who found natural ultramarine (derived from expensive lapis lazuli) too costly, Guimet developed a synthetic version by heating a mixture of kaolin, soda, sulfur, charcoal, and other compounds. This chemically identical but far cheaper pigment won a prize from the Société d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale in 1828.
In 1831, Guimet established his first factory in Fleurieu-sur-Saône (Rhône department, north of Lyon), where large-scale production began. The site grew significantly: extensions, new furnaces, a dedicated railway halt ("le train bleu"), and a Saône river pontoon facilitated operations. By the late 19th century, under his son Émile Guimet (1836–1918), the factory employed 150 workers and produced 1,000 tons annually.
The pigment's success stemmed from its versatility: used in fine art painting (by artists like Ingres, Renoir, and Van Gogh), but especially for "azurage" — optically whitening laundry, paper, and textiles. This made it a global industrial staple, with the family fortune enabling investments (including founding Pechiney in 1855) and cultural patronage (Émile founded the Guimet museums in Lyon and Paris).
The family business expanded internationally through subsequent generations, reaching peak production of 4,500 tons in the 1940s. However, the Fleurieu-sur-Saône factory closed in 1967 after sale to British company Reckitt & Colman (now produced elsewhere, e.g., by Holliday Pigments). The historic site was repurposed into the Centre Artisanal Bleu Guimet, an artisanal and business zone preserving its industrial heritage.
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After completion (72 frames), the film was given to a local lab service.
Single-frame digitizing was made using a Sony A7 camera (ILCE-7, 24MP) fitted to a Minolta Auto Bellows III with the Minolta slide duplication accessory and Minolta Macro Bellow lens 1:3.5 f=50mm at approximate reproduction ratio of 1:2. The diffuse light source was a LED panel CineStill Cine-lite.
The RAW files obtained were inverted within the latest version available of Adobe Lightroom Classic (version 15.0.1 of dec. 2025) and edited to the final jpeg pictures without intermediate file. They are presented either as printer files with a frame or the full size JPEG's together with some documentary smartphone color pictures.
About the camera :
Since last Christmas 2024, it was on display in the middle of « reusable » cheap camera’s in the window of my local photography store. But this camera is not cheap and sold at 10-times the price of those « reusable » film camera’s. The Pentax 17 is a novel film camera released by Pentax (a brand belonging to Ricoh Imaging, Japan) in June 2024.
The history of « Pentax » name is still something worth to mention. After the WWII, in Dresden (that was heavily destroyed by the bombing of Feb. 13-15, 1945), Germany, The Zeiss Ikon company could not produce anymore the legendary original Contax (a high-reputation professional range-finder 35mm released in 30’s) camera that was taken by Russia and transferred to Kiev, Ukraine, in the USSR. However the brand name Contax survived and the German engineers designed something completely new within several years : the Contax S (S for « Spiegel mirror reflex ») that integrated a pentaprism for a full redressed reflex viewer observation. Zeiss Ikon Dresden registered to new trademarks derived from the words « Pentaprism » and « Contax » that were « Pentax » and « Pentacon ». If Pentacon became the new name of the company in Dresden, the trademark Pentax was bought by Asahi Optical Company in Japan, and became a formidable industrial and commercial success. Asahi Pentax, then Pentax alone, produced amazing quality camera’s including the legendary « Spotmatic » (a 35mm SLR) and stunning medium-format camera’s heavily used by professional photographers. Many of these camera’s of the past century are still operative and appreciated by film photography enthusiast’s.
Production of film camera’s vanished progressively in the mid 2000’s, as digital camera’s became of better quality and finally of generalized appliances in photography. The Pentax 17 was introduced to the market in June 2024, it was a big surprise for all the film photography lovers. Seeing a newly engineered brand-new film camera was a sort of renaissance of the film photography today of a growing interest worldwide.
The camera is a « half-frame » format on the traditional double-perforated 35mm film giving 17x24mm photograms. This format was not as popular as to classical 24x36mm (full-frame) format of most of the 35mm camera’s. However famous and quality half-frame camera’s were produced in the past including, the long series of Olympus Pen for example. Then, the Pentax 17 immediately attracted the attention of experimented film photographers and camera collectors, probably more than the officially targeted customers of the younger generations. Less than a year after, the future of the Pentax 17 and the film photography project of Pentax is questioned today. The chef-engineer who conducted the project in Ricoh company recently left and the marketing of Pentax 17 is now a question.
This finally decided me to buy an exemplary from my local shop and to discover this strange machine. The camera is of course guaranteed, even with a there-year extension after the camera registration on the Pentax website. The whole ergonomic is clearly derived from classical past 35mm camera’s with a fully mechanical film advance and rewind, a collimated Albada viewer, no digital display at all, only levers, barrels, crank and wheels… However inside is a automatic electronic exposure system with flash, the focusing is manual but the electronic mechanism moves the whole optical group with a micro motor.
The lens is a Cooke triplet 1:3.5 f=25mm equivalent to a 37mm of a 24x36mm format. The Cooke triplet is a photographic lens designed and patented in 1893 by Dennis Taylor who was employed as chief engineer by T. Cooke & Sons of York. It was the first lens system that allowed the elimination of most of the optical distortion or aberration at the outer edge of the image. It likely for this reason that the lens is unscripted curiously « Traditional » on the front lens ring… It is known that a Cooke triplet lens could give surprisingly good results with only three separated optical elements. The Cooke Triplet is still widely used in inexpensive cameras, including variations using aspheric elements, particularly in cell-phone cameras. The Cooke triplet consists of three separated lenses positioned at the finite distance. It is often considered that the triplet is one of the most important discoveries in the field of photographic objectives
The lens receives 40.5mm diameter thread filters that I use for my Zorki / Leningrad lenses Jupiter-8 2/50mm, Jupiter-11 4/135mm and Jupiter-12 2.8/35mm. The metal shade hood Minolta D42KA could mounted on the filter but I have to check is there is vignette induced.
The camera size is close to the original dimensions of a thread-mount Leica (called also the original Barnack Leica) which are, in a way, a sort of « Gold » size in the 35mm camera’s. I compared with my Zorki 1D year 1954 that is a straight reproduction of the Leica Iic. The upper deck of Pentax 17 is designed very clearly as a classical 35mm and we even find the original logo of Asahi Optical Company. The rewind crank is also a revival of past design seen on old Pentax SLR as my year-1971 Spotmatic SP in this seres of pictures.
The Pentax 17 is very light (about 300g) compared to those old ancestors that weight easily the double or the triple. It is then an effortless camera to carry. The Pentax 17 fits in the small ThinkTank bag (called « Mirorless Mover 5 ») that I recently bought to safely carry a film back of my Hasselblad or my Bronica 6X6 camera’s. In this tiny bag, the camera is protected for the element and vibrations due to cycling for instance.
Reference
analoguewonderland.co.uk/blogs/film-photography-blog/pent...
Key features and specifications
* Half-frame image capture (17 x 24mm)
* 37mm (equiv.) FOV F3.5 lens
* Zone focusing system with 6 zones
* Circular leaf shutter (F3.5-16)
* Built-in flash (6m/20ft at ISO100)
* Optical tunnel viewfinder with frame lines
* Exposure from 1/350 sec to 4 sec (+ Bulb)
* Supports films from ISO 50 to ISO 3200
Specifically the lens has:
1. HD coating, which maintains high performance of the lens, by using this PENTAX multi-coating. This also enables high contrast and high definition right to the edges.
2. SP coating (Super Protect) which helps to repel water and oil from the lens.
The fact that the focusing on the Pentax 17 is electronic i.e. the lens only moves when you half-press the shutter gives me faith that autofocus was already considered in the R&D stage.
Keep Adding is installing today. This painting is only the back drop for another piece going on top of it tomorrow! Come Halloween to see the full piece!
Mientras rehabilitan un edificio, distraen al personal con bonitos anuncios. Este está visto a través de un detalle modernista del Paseig de Grà cia.
Underwater Odyssey snorkeling sea tour in Pattaya Thailand 10 January 2025
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